In this year John Mackrell, the great nephew of Isaac Smith, Elizabeth Cook's cousin, organized the display of this collection at the request of the NSW Government at the Colonial and Indian Exhibition in London.

Cook made detailed maps of Newfoundland prior to making three voyages to the Pacific Ocean, during which he achieved the first European contact with the eastern coastline of Australia and the Hawaiian Islands, as well as the first recorded circumnavigation of New Zealand.

He saw action in the Seven Years' War, and subsequently surveyed and mapped much of the entrance to the Saint Lawrence River during the siege of Quebec.

This notice came at a crucial moment in both Cook's career and the direction of British overseas exploration, and led to his commission in 1768 as commander of HM Bark Endeavour for the first of three Pacific voyages.

He displayed a combination of seamanship, superior surveying and cartographic skills, physical courage and an ability to lead men in adverse conditions.

He left a legacy of scientific and geographical knowledge which was to influence his successors well into the 20th century and numerous memorials worldwide have been dedicated to him.

However, his role in opening areas of the Pacific to colonisation and its subsequent effects on indigenous peoples have been the subject of both political and scholarly debate.

Captain Cook first visited the Hawaiian Islands on 18 January 1778 on his third voyage, and his ships spent three months there, mostly anchored off Kauai and Hawaii.

The objects acquired reflect the fact that the Hawaiians initially treated Cook as a god and presented him with high status goods such as feathered capes, hats, ornaments and images.

As this was a point of first contact between Europeans and Hawaiians, a thriving trade developed, and a large number of artefacts, mostly those that were carried or worn, were brought back to England.

The Resolution and Discovery spent about one month in the area while the ships were repaired and made ready for the expedition to find the northwest passage.

In Unalaska or the Aleutian Islands Samwell recorded that the crew traded cloth from Hawaii and Tahiti with the locals for arrows and other articles.

A large number of weapons and fishing and hunting implements, as well as a few paddles and canoe models, were collected in the northern parts of America and Asia and are hard to provenance (see H000106 and H00122 and H000139).

[4] The only known European contact with New Zealand prior to Cook's voyages was a short and hostile interaction when Abel Tasman visited Golden Bay on the north west tip of the South Island in 1642.

Kaeppler suggests that the availability of iron tools and the influence of European ideas and desires for certain goods may have stimulated changes in artefact production over the period of interactions.

A brisk trade developed, and large quantities of iron nails and spikes were exchanged for barkcloth, fish hooks, pearls, shells, adzes and other tools.

The Frenchman Louis-Antoine de Bougainville also visited in 1768, and the artefacts and stories brought back to Europe from these 2 voyages helped to create the vision of Tahiti as a south pacific paradise.

The Royal Society chose Tahiti as a suitable place to observe the astronomical event of the Transit of Venus, and for this purpose Cook was sent on his first voyage.

The islanders welcomed Cook and Banks with green banana branches, calling them TAIO or friend, and giving them gifts of perfumed cloth.

Although this phenomenon was observed at 26 different points around the world, astronomers later realised that the telescopes of the day weren't precise enough to accomplish the task of accurately determining the distance between the Earth and the Sun.

Semicircular breast ornaments, or gorgets, were commonly worn, and many were collected by the crew and valued as a special type of artificial curiosity (see H000105 and H000145).

Combs collected were made from the midribs of coconut leaflets, intertwined with fine sennit cord to make decorative patterns.